Print Unit Sales Rose 1.2% In Late August

Unit sales of print books rose 1.2% in the week ended Aug. 24, 2019, compared to the similar week in 2018, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Three of the four major segments had gains over the week ended Aug. 25, 2018, led by juvenile fiction, where units were up 8.7%. The increase in the juvenile fiction category was driven by Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls, which sold nearly 126,000 copies in its second week; its two-week sales total is more than 368,000 copies. A distant second was We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins, which sold nearly 22,000 copies. Getting-ready-for-school titles dominated the juvenile nonfiction category, where units rose 6.4% over 2018. Big Preschool was the big winner in the week, with more than 17,000 copies sold. Workman’s Ace series had four titles among the category’s top 10 bestsellers, led by Everything You Need to Know to Ace Math in One Big Fat Notebook, which sold just under 9,000 copies. Print unit sales increased 4.4% in the adult fiction category, where the unstoppable Where the Crawdads Sing was #1 in the category again, with more than 40,000 copies sold. The top-selling new title was Old Bones by Doug Preston and Lincoln Child, which sold over 13,000 copies in its first week. Adult nonfiction unit sales dropped 4% compared to 2018. Thank You for My Service by Mat Best was #1 in the category in its first week, selling over 26,000 copies. Last year at this time, Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis was the top adult nonfiction title, selling more than 59,000 copies.